200 Contributions from the Sheffield Laboratory. 
healthy, but they did not obtain one-fourth the height of those 
in No. 1, and what was very remarkable, they jormed no roots 
ata 
In 5 (sulphuric acid) the plants were more advanced than in 
the citric acid, and had healthy roots extending down inte the 
liquid. 
8 (permanganate of potash) the condition of affairs most 
resembled that in the citric acid. In both the seeds had germin- 
and. produced healthy looking plants an inch in height. 
But no roots whatever had been formed in either case. 
Some of the above sets of seeds were allowed to vegetate 
for a month, and developed curious results. 
ose plants which grew in the vessels containing solutions 
of cane sugar, gum, and glycerine respectively, grew as fast and 
flourished as well as those in plain water, but it could scarcely 
be said that at the end of the month they presented any supe: 
riorit 
But whilst the roots of the plants in plain water, in gum, and 
in glycerine, reached to the very bottom of the vessel, becom- 
ing four to five inches long, those in the cane sugar did not ex- 
ceed an inch in length, just dropping below the surface of the 
water, which had become lowered by spontaneous evaporation, 
and this although the plants were as high as in the others just 
mentioned, viz. six to eight inches, and as numerous an 
healthy in every respect. This would seem to indicate that 
they received their nutriment in a more concentrated form, if it 
were not that these plants, though equally large and healthy as 
those in plain water, exhibited no superiority over them. 
Art. XXIT.—Contributions from the Sheffield Laboratory of Yale 
College.—XII1. On Native Crystallized Terpin; by S.W. JOHNSON. 
In October, 1866, the writer received from Wm. M. Gabb, Esq, 
of the Geological Survey of California, a small quantity of crys 
tals found in “cavities near the core of a semi-decomposed pine 
stump that was buried three or four feet below the surface 
in Shasta Co., California.” The crystals were discovered by Mr. 
Voy o rancisco, 
At the request of Mr. Gabb I have examined these crystals, 
which, in the sample received, were still partly adhering to 
fragment of pine, where they were associated with another crys 
talline substance of a yellowish color and resinous as og 
_ The crystals were colorless and transparent, the largest indi- 
vidual was three-eighths of an inch long, one-eighth of an inch 
wide and one-sixteenth of an inch thick. They were of brilliant 
luster and well terminated at the free ends. From their occur- 
ring in buried pine wood and from their general appearance, it 
